Lessons I learned in my marriage that helped me pivot during the pandemic

My entire world shattered in December 2014, only about a week before Christmas. I discovered, quite by accident, that my marriage was over, and there was nothing that I could do to change it.

I became a zombie and sat in my room for hours wrapping Christmas gifts, avoiding the children, telling them through the door to watch more Christmas movies and drink more hot chocolate, unable to emerge or pretend I was ok.

The entire time I was begging God not to let my new reality be my new reality. I couldn’t see the future. I was terrified, and I could barely keep up with the tasks to keep the house running.

Making It Through Christmas

That Christmas was brutal, as was the entire next two or so years…I’ve lost track as time has passed.

(Recently, while going down memory lane with my kids, they brought that Christmas up; I steeled myself for what they had to say, not knowing how well I’d hidden my pain only to find out that they thought it was one of the best Christmas’ ever. The reasons they listed were that they stayed up late, slept in late and watched EVERY. SINGLE. Christmas movie they’d ever wanted to watch. The things I was shaming myself for allowing, they were celebrating! All I can say is, “Thank you, Jesus.”)

No Quick Fixes Here

I’d love to be able to tell you that I pulled myself together shortly after my marriage broke. That I started a business and transformed my life. I’d love to tell you that I found a new sense of self, outside of the relationship I’d been in since Grade 6….but none of that is true. My life was wretched for quite sometime after my discovery. What did happen is that I learned A LOT of tear-stained, hard-fought, hard-won life lessons.

That’s the value in going through hard things, don’t you think? If not for lessons and growth, I’m not sure I’d value this human experience as much as I do.

But I do.

I can say that now with full confidence. I wish I could go back and whisper all that into the ear of my 2014-year-old self….but she would have a very tough time hearing that or having the faith to believe it. In fact, SHE was so angry and so hurt that she probably would want to punch me for even suggesting there was any value to be had in the nightmare she was living.

No, I can’t go back and share with Her the lessons I fought so hard for, but I can share them with you. Lessons on love, parenting, family, spirituality, entrepreneurship and most of all,…..failing. I don’t know about you, but I’m incredibly well-acquainted with failure, and I don’t think enough people talk about it. I’m so spectacularly good at failing that I’m considering putting it in my various profiles because I’m pretty sure that by now, I’m expert status in the field.

Finding Redemption In The Heartbreak

I’ve come to believe that what makes someone great at failing is the resilience to get back up. And I’m also really good at getting back up even when I’ve wondered if it was actually wise to do so or others have advised that maybe I should stay down for just a little while longer. I kind of love the feeling of pushing myself up off the mat, shaking myself off and running back at whatever it is that has sought to count me out. So here I am sharing with you what I’ve learnt in the fire, in the fight and even more recently in the freedom (that’ll come later…so stick with me).

I’m here to share with you the things that have kept me breathing, kept me pushing, kept me hopeful.

It’s been a long time coming, this willingness for vulnerability. I’ve thought a lot about it over the years. How to talk about it or if I should at all. How to protect the innocent and not so innocent parties (me included). I also know from living through other tragedies that wisdom takes time, and I didn’t want to jump the gun. I wanted to be sure that my lessons were sound. That they did, in fact, have real validity. This one, the first one I’ve chosen to share with you on this cold December Friday, is just one simple word. It’s the word I wrote in lip liner across my bathroom mirror over my double sink counter that now only had one person using it.

That word was……

REBOOT

Every day when I forced my legs over the side of my bed and stumbled to the bathroom after a night of fighting to catch some sleep, I would see that word.

I would see it while showering.

I would see it while brushing my teeth.

I would see it if I dared to care enough to do my hair or makeup.

I would see it when I became so overwhelmed that I had to lock myself in the bathroom so I could scream into a towel that I’d stuffed in my mouth before heading back out to make snacks or check homework.

That word was there in the night when I would lay on the floor with my face pressed against the cool bathroom tiles to counter the hot tears stinging my sunken yet puffy face.

I had it there for months in big, bold red letters. Staring at me, regardless of how terrified and defeated, I felt.

REBOOT

I got the word from a podcast (that I haven’t been able to recall or find again)  a friend had suggested. The interviewee had talked about some life-altering circumstances that she’d gone through. In order to survive, she and her family had instigated a reboot on their entire life. They tore apart everything they’d built and started all over.

Unlike me, she had chosen her reboot, but either way, I realized that my system had been rebooted. I realized I could fight the reset or take charge and do it for myself. I began to see that I could decide what this system reboot would look like. I could decide what parts of the system stayed, what parts had to go and what new upgrades I could add.

The new upgrades were what I focused on first.

Hands shaking, I would repeat the word over and over, force a smile on my face and reimagine what was possible. I’d tell myself that I was given a new opportunity. Some people, I would tell myself, were stuck in an old system that held them hostage, but I had been given the gift of a forced reboot. I would never have been brave enough to hit CTRL ALT DELETE on my life, but it had happened, and I wasn’t going to waste it.

I know I’m not alone. In fact, this year every single one of us has had our systems rebooted whether we agreed to it or not. We’ve experienced forced lockdowns, change in how we work, how we go to school and how we interact with the outside world.

Again, I’ve found myself having to go into “REBOOT mode”. I’m not saying that having to shut my smoothie bowl & protein shake bar (www.instagram.com/freshrevolutionbar) didn’t scare me. It did! But, I’ve been here before, just in a different capacity. I was able to rely on the resilience I’ve built up to switch my mindset.

Our circumstances may not be our choice but what we do with them is.

I guess what I’m saying is, is that lamenting what was won’t move you forward. The longer I dwelled on the unfair circumstances of my failed marriage the more depressed I became.

So what’s next? Let me tell you, it didn’t all work out how I thought it was going to. And I know this whole pandemic thing will surprise us too.  None of us knows exactly where all of this is headed but there is strength and beauty to be found in the messy middle.

Come back next Friday to find out what the next step was that I took and how I’m applying it this time. In the meantime comment below and let me know if this resonates with you or not.  I’d love to hear from you.